There’s something dignified and modest about character actors, especially the ones in Coen brothers films (like the rotund M. Emmet Walsh, William H. Macy, or sad-eyed Steve Buscemi), that makes one think they all live alone in drafty Hell’s Kitchen walk-ups.

But Tim Blake Nelson (from the Coens’ O Brother, Where Art Thou?—he played Delmar—but also Scooby-Doo 2) and wife Lisa just sold their 7.5-room prewar co-op at 37 Riverside Drive for $5.25 million. Their buyer is Jonathan Morris, co-founder of the retail fashion Web site Bluefly.

According to the listing with Prudential Douglas Elliman broker William Postrion, the apartment has a renovated chef’s kitchen, plus a wine cooler, and three bathrooms. Two of them, Mr. Postrion told The Observer, “had river views when you were sitting on the john.”

Sadly, the maid’s bathroom has no views. “No—think about it, the maid would not have a bathroom with a view, right?” Mr. Postrion said. On the bright side, according to the floor plan, the maid’s bedroom, 9.5 by 10.25 feet, has a window.

The apartment in general was in beautiful shape after the Nelson couple did a hefty renovation: “Contemporary loft-style I think is the best description,” the broker said, “very spare, clean lines … neutral floor; contemporary art; discreet lighting, that sort of thing.” (When pressed, he said the art was “Rothko-inspired.”)

But not everything was spare. Besides the wine cooler, the kitchen had a stove with a grill on it. “You could even grill a steak,” said Mr. Postrion. “It’s big enough.” Mr. Nelson is reportedly putting in a new kitchen in the West 104th Street apartment the couple bought in May for $4.95 million.

Maybe it makes sense Mr. Nelson deals in the haute world of multimillion-dollar co-ops: He had a supporting role in Minority Report, and he directed the Othello update O. And he’s smart. “I’m inspired paradoxically,” he wrote in a New York Times essay last year, “by some of the world’s greatest thinkers: Plato and Aristotle on the nature of theater, for example.”